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You can now explore the Taj Mahal and other Indian monuments through Google Street View
Feb21
on February 21, 2014
at 2:32 am
You can now immerse yourself in the magnificence of India’s iconic Taj Mahal and 29 other monuments from the country, simply by making your way through Street View on Google Maps.
India’s Taj Mahal is a much-admired heritage site globally, and is included as one of the new seven wonders of the world. For those who can’t make it to India, Google has brought the Taj Mahal to you.
After announcing in October last year that it was working with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to bring the Street View Trekker to 100 Indian heritage and cultural wonders, Google has now come up with 360-degree panoramic imagery of 30 monuments. You can virtually experience the walled city of Agra Fort, see the soaring tower of Qutb Minar, and admire the red sandstone walls of Red Fort, among others.
This is Google Street View’s second foray into India, after it was banned in 2011 from collecting images in the southern Indian city of Bangalore due to privacy concerns — and Internet users will no doubt be glad to finally immerse themselves in the virtual presence of India’s majestic monuments.
Here’s a video bringing you through Google Maps Street View to the Taj Mahal.
Headline image via Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images
YouTube begins rolling out a new, cleaner user interface as it makes finding playlists easier
Feb21
on February 21, 2014
at 12:00 am
YouTube is rolling out a set of changes to the video social network that helps you better discover playlists and makes the service more accessible.
With playlists, YouTube has streamlined the process, eliminating a step required to view videos in a particular playlist once it’s been liked. Before, once users liked the playlist, they had to go to their guide, click on the one they wanted to watch, and it would open up in a new window. Now videos can be played right within the guide screen, whether they’re your own curated ones or from channels that you’ve liked.
Lastly, in an effort to bring its Web app more in line with its mobile apps, YouTube has adjusted the design of its interface. It now features a center-aligned look, exactly what was seen back in January. The site now offers a much cleaner interface with more of a focus on the videos. Two links at the top of the screen allow users to navigate between recommended videos and their subscriptions.
In the new homepage redesign, you can also click on the guide icon that’s located to the right of the YouTube logo to view your playlists and subscriptions, along with other options.
Earlier this year, Tech2Notify discovered that YouTube was testing a new look and feel on the service. A spokesperson at the time confirmed the report, calling it an experiment designed to “help people more easily find, watch and share the videos that matter most to them.” Based on the feedback that it received, YouTube is ready to roll this out to its global community, though it could take a few hours or days to get to you.
Photo credit: ERIC PIERMONT/AFP/Getty Images
Matt Winn is Volusion’s Marketing Communications Manager, where he helps oversee the organization’s branding and communications efforts.
Our current culture is riddled with mobile junkies addicted to their tablets and smartphones. While this newfound obsession has had quite the negative impact on dinner conversation, it does present a great opportunity for retailers to take advantage of this mobile fixation by providing a high-impact, enjoyable mobile commerce experience.
The problem? Far too many retailers make critical errors when it comes to mobile commerce.
Here are the top five issues you will want to avoid.
1. Overcomplicating your mobile homepage
The majority of your mobile traffic lands directly on your homepage, so you should direct visitors where you want them to go: deeper into your website.
Keep in mind that shoppers are interacting with your site via a much smaller screen, so having complex carousels or dramatic slideshows on your homepage can be highly distracting.
From a more tactical standpoint, the majority of shoppers use smartphones to browse and research products, so provide immediate access to your product categories.
Even more, overcomplicating your homepage can and will cause slow load times, which not only ranks as the number one user complaint for mobile sites, but also negatively impacts organic search results.
2. Convoluted checkout experience
Remember the last time you entered your name, billing information, shipping information and credit card number on a 4-inch screen?
The same cumbersome experience holds true for your mobile customers. That’s why, from a user experience standpoint, you should work to keep the amount of information required for checkout to a minimum.
With 66 percent of mobile shoppers failing to complete a transaction due to obstacles presented during checkout, removing barriers from the checkout process is a key function to increasing mobile conversions.
To do so, only require the most basic information, and even more, allow repeat customers (both from mobile and desktop) to log in and use saved payment information. This simple step will make the checkout experience much more seamless and efficient.
3. Predominantly highlighting QR codes
While QR (quick response) codes may seem like an innovative mobile marketing tool, consider it officially old school.
Long story short, QR codes ask a lot from users, including the following steps: recognize QR code, pull out mobile phone, launch QR scanner app (assuming they already have one downloaded), perfectly align mobile camera to QR code, snap picture, submit QR code, wait for response, then arrive on desired website.
Seems like quite the chore in this day of mobile apps and readily available mobile websites.
Unless you have experienced success with QR codes in your mobile marketing campaigns, shy away from them. Not only are they difficult to use, consumers don’t believe that scanning QR codes are worth their time, which can lead to negative associations with your brand.
4. Not embracing mobile-friendly, responsive email marketing
As of January 2014, 51 percent of email is opened on a mobile device. This means that if your email campaigns aren’t optimized for mobile, you’re making a huge mistake.
To get started, take a look at your email statistics over the past year to see trends in open rates from mobile devices. Even more, study your mobile click-through rates – if there’s a big gap in this metric between desktop and mobile, it’s time to make a change.
Fortunately, there are several email solutions that are easy to use and fully optimized for mobile. When looking at your options, search for technology that has built-in responsive design so all email content is guaranteed to render perfectly, regardless of device or screen size.
Speaking of content, keep your messages clear and concise, and avoid long bits of copy or overly complicated graphics.
Once you put these design and technology pieces in place, start benchmarking your email metrics to track progress and identify additional opportunities for optimization. After all, email marketing is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal, so don’t ignore it.
5. “Unable to play/download on your device”
This one may seem like a no brainer, but it’s easily one of the most common mobile commerce mistakes: make sure that all content on your site, particularly documents and video, can be downloaded or played on a mobile device.
One far too common example of this comes from mobile sites using Flash, which presents a compatibility issue with Apple’s iOS, meaning that iPhone and iPad users can’t interact with this content.
This same story is true for PDF files on your mobile site – Apple and Adobe don’t play nice together, so many Apple users will be unable to download or review these documents.
Just as important, Google has directly stated that having inaccessible content is a top mistake for mobile sites – and if Google says it’s a mistake, you’d better listen.
Love or hate our mobile-crazed culture, you can’t deny the opportunity that this technology has to offer. To recap: keep your mobile site simple and uncluttered, focus on usability, and directly pursue the benefits of mobile marketing.
Once you embrace these pieces of advice, the mobile landscape will become your proverbial oyster.